We're making a beautiful, high-end frame to order and delivering it within a week. Of course there are cheaper alternatives/materials, but you can easily tell the difference and oftentimes cheap frames will literally fall apart within a few years.
We design and source our own profiles (sustainably-harvested wood) and then make each frame to order in NY using similar tools/materials to any high-end custom frame shop. We have added a few touches to make it easy to open up the frame and mount your artwork inside when it arrives.
We'll soon be able to print and frame your photos - and thinking about making them available (opt-in of course) for other people to purchase. Would love to know if that interests you (or anyone else here). Also feel free to sign up for the newsletter on the site (the bottom button in the footer at www.levleframes.com) to stay posted. And hanks for sharing that experience!
So it's traditionally been a very high-touch service with the need for retail overhead. Most frame shops carry way too many supplies/options, and outsource a portion of the work (which accounts for the delay). They are also geographically limited in terms of the business they can do, and get most of it on the weekends when people have time to stop by. So there's a lot of margin in the price above the cost of the components. Having said that, custom framers can do amazing things, and the word "racket" was used mainly for the headlines. The fit for Levle is creating a super high-quality and great looking frame for that $20-$60 print or poster that doesn't need the expertise of a master framer.
So framing is mostly subjective, but there a fair amount of science and best practice can be applied. Based on the size of the artwork, there are some "golden ratios" around how thick the mat and the frame should be. The Best Bet button employs a simple algorithm that will give you the recommended configuration. More room to optimize this, but main goal was to have one button that would get you to something good looking if you are not an experienced framer.
Thanks for the feedback! Price-wise, there is almost no way a wooden frame of that size with a framers-grade acrylic could ever get down to that size. Cost of the wood alone is ~$0.30 per linear inch.
For me, I think it's wonderful that you can get a great print or poster for $40. That problem has been solved. But you can tell a cheap frame from a quality one every time.
Exactly. The two products you mention are similar also in the fact that a traditional e-commerce paradigm (thumbnails and drop downs) don't quite map to the way you want to preview and select them. So much room for Levle to grow and become more intuitive/helpful to getting the right frame for your art up on the wall.
You nailed the alternatives on the head: buy cheap plastic or MDF frames that look crappy and are hard to find in the right size, or spend $$$ at the custom frame shop for a beautiful, high-quality frame. I wanted to deliver the same product as the custom frame shop, but in a much more convenient way and at ~half the cost. Could expand into other price point later, but right now trying to hit that sweet spot in the middle where there is a real pain point.
thanks for taking a look, I will look into the fractions change.
I'm guessing that the competitor was not using materials that were as quality or archival. I'm also trying to differentiate on the UI/UX. Most of the sites I've tried (and I've tried a lot) take dozens of steps to order the frame and have way too many options.
just to clarify - 12" x 12" (dimensions of the artwork) will result in a mat opening of 11.5" x 11.5" because the mat has to overlap the print by 1/4" on each side to hold it in place. Trying to make this element as clear as possible, all of this feedback very useful.
Great feedback. Right now you can contact me directly with that (I try to mention it in the FAQ and tool tips), but have not built the feature to directly specify. Thought it would be easiest for most customers to measure their prints/posters and supply that one set of dimensions. Would love the opportunity to frame something for you!
The best part is that no technical integration is required (drop a postcard into the shipping tube with the URL or email it with the receipt).
Thanks for the feedback on mat samples and the acrylic. Some details on the Frames page, but I can be more specific. Museum glass is great but decent risk of breaking in transit, hence the use of the acrylic.
Thanks donall! Yes, these are not cheap frames or Ikea offerings. They are what you would get from a high-end custom frame shop. I'm able to bring the prices down by going direct, removing the need to handle the artwork (you do that part, but it's not hard) and eliminating the retail overhead.